uched a
long, gray body with the claws of an uplifted forefoot extended, and
cruel, catlike lips drawn into a hideous snarl.

The other forefoot rested upon the limp, furry body of a rabbit, and
the great, yellow-green eyes glowed and waned in the dimming light,
while the sharply tufted ears worked forward and back in quick, nervous
twitches.

"A _loup-cervier_," whispered the boy, and slowly raised Blood River
Jack's rifle until the sights lined exactly between the glowing eyes.
He pulled the trigger and, at the sharp metallic click with which the
hammer descended upon the firing-pin, the brute seized the rabbit
between its wide, blunt jaws and bounded away in long leaps.

Hot tears of disappointment blurred the youngster's eyes and trickled
down his cheeks--he had forgotten to load the rifle, and his hands
trembled as he hurriedly jammed the long, flask-shaped cartridges into
the magazine and followed down to the river on the trail of the big
cat.

He remembered as he mushed along on his small rackets that Bill had
told him of a rocky ledge some five or six miles below camp, and had
promised to take him to this place where the _loup-cerviers_ had their
dens among the rocks.

The trail held to the river, whose banks rose more abruptly as he
proceeded, and at length, as he rounded a sharp bend, he could make out
dimly through the thickening air the outline of a high rocky bluff; but
even as he looked, the ledge was blotted out by a quick flurry of snow,
and from high among the tree-tops came a long, wailing moan of wind.

The trees pitched wildly in the icy blast; the moan increased to a
mighty roar, and the air was thick with flying snow. Not the soft,
flaky snow of the previous storm, but particles fine as frozen fog,
that bit and stung as they whirled against his face in the eddying
gusts that came from no direction at all and every direction at once.

The boy bowed his head to the storm and pushed steadily forward--he
_must_ kill the _loup-cervier_, whose trail was growing momentarily
more indistinct.

His eyes could penetrate but a few yards into the white smother, and
suddenly the dark wall of the rock ledge loomed in front of him, and
the trail, almost obliterated now, turned sharply and disappeared
between two huge, upstanding bowlders.

CHAPTER XLI

THE BLIZZARD

At eleven o'clock in the morning Bill Carmody ordered his teams to the
stables.

At twelve o'clock, when the men crowded into